


You Found Me

by messofthejess



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, First Kiss, Idiots in Love, Late Night Conversations, M/M, McDonald's, Mutual Pining, Rescue Missions, he's too busy giving destiny the middle finger to do that, though Simon doesn't quite realize he's pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-08-01 19:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16290548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/messofthejess/pseuds/messofthejess
Summary: "If you'd have been there, Snow, all the numpties would have been dead.""Maybe." Simon sticks his chin out. "But it wouldn't have taken six weeks."In which it still takes six weeks to find Baz, but Simon's the one doing the searching.





	1. Why'd You Have to Wait?

**Author's Note:**

> Happy third anniversary to Carry On! I've always wanted to write a fic to celebrate my love for these characters, but I was stuck for ideas until I reread the book and rediscovered the line Baz says about what would have happened if Simon had been the one to rescue him from the numpties. And so, a fic was born. I'm sure this has already been done, but it doesn't hurt to have another take, does it? 
> 
> Chapter title from "You Found Me" by the Fray, as is the fic title.

**Simon**

Five weeks is an awfully long time to go without seeing someone. I get by in the summers without seeing Penny or Ebb or anything else to do with Watford because I choose not to think about them. But I can’t _not_ think about Baz, because the second I don’t, the git will spring some kind of trap on me, or slide out from the shadows and attack me from behind. Never mind that the Mage stashes me in a new care home every summer—if anyone in the world could find where I was, at any time, it would be Baz.

Which is why it’s been driving me absolutely mad that he’s not here at school.

Penny hasn’t been with me when I’ve gone down to the Catacombs and cast “ ** _Olly olly oxen free!_** ” on every nook and cranny. She hasn’t been with me when I’ve walked along the ramparts at night (though I did eventually explain the Agatha thing—not the bit where I stole Baz’s handkerchief back from her), or talked to the wood nymphs who seemed to only want to ask me confusing questions rather than actually provide any help.

 _What do you seek, Chosen One?_ A conclusion to the Humdrum madness would be a nice start. Tentative peace with the Old Families, which would probably come about after the Humdrum was taken care of. Being able to graduate Watford and maybe, just maybe, getting a chance at living a life outside of a war zone.

I don’t want a wife and squirming children and a fat cocker spaniel to bring me my slippers, like the Mage supposedly wants. The first part of that white picket fence got blasted down when Agatha told me she would rather be snogging a fucking vampire than me. Not that I’ve devoted too much of my energy to thinking about that lately. To be honest, it didn’t feel like I thought a break-up ever would, not like how it seems to be in the songs Normals write. Instead of breaking, something in my chest felt like it was unraveling, like an old pair of over-washed socks. Maybe that should be a sign that things weren’t going well, but again. Can’t think about that now.

_What do you seek, Chosen One?_

I seek Baz.

I want to know if he’s actually been drawn off the front line by his family and is glowering in one of the Pitch mansions, waiting for the next move. Highly unlikely, really—Baz has always worked off of his own volition when fighting me. Maybe his appetite for blood grew after his eighteenth birthday, and he can’t be at Watford anymore because then he actually _would_ expose himself as a vampire. I can see him in London: lurking in the shadows in a dark three-piece suit, eyes searching for a hapless drunk staggering out of the pub who no one will miss and sinking his wicked fangs into their neck.

(Do you get drunk if you drink the blood of someone who’s drunk?)

(If Baz were here, I could ask him. I don’t think he’d actually know, but he’d give me some bullshit answer that sounded so convincing I would believe whatever he said. Baz has that kind of voice, one where he could tell you that the Earth was the flat center of the universe or that all we see is the Matrix, and you’d think it was the truth. Maybe that’s the generations of authority and power talking.)

(Why is he not _here_?)

I’m not paying as close attention as I should during lessons. The Minotaur has noticed me spacing out during Political Science—one of my better classes—and Miss Possibelf is probably at her wit’s end with me in Elocution. Penny tutors me during tea and whenever we can meet up during the evenings, but even then, I don’t think I’m grasping all of what I’m supposed to learn. Everything feels so far away, like it’s floating on ocean waves, and I somehow cast “ ** _Drift away!_** ” on myself without meaning to. I _want_ to feel grounded again, but I can’t.

Where are you, Baz?

****

Another week passes before I finally decide to go looking for Baz.

For one thing, his mum decided to Visit our room. As if it wasn’t creepy enough having ghosts materialize on the Great Lawn or during lunch, Headmistress Natasha Pitch had to show up while I was sleeping and scare the hell out of me. She was upset that Baz wasn’t there, of course, and all I could tell her was that I didn’t know where he was, either. I can’t lie to anyone, but it felt especially wrong to try and lie to her. She only wanted to see her son.

_My killer walks—Nicodemus knows. Tell Basilton to find Nico and bring me peace._

I’d always assumed, like everyone else, that the Humdrum sent the vampires to attack Watford. But the way Baz’s mum said ‘my killer’ makes it seem like she knew someone specific was behind it, not some maniacal magic-sucking entity wearing my face. And the person behind it is still alive. Does bringing her peace mean that Baz has to kill whoever killed his mum? Is Nicodemus the one who has to avenge her death? For that matter, who is Nicodemus? I hope to Merlin Baz knows who they might be, because I have absolutely no bloody clue how to begin looking. Penny is the master of research in our world-saving team.

I _should_ tell Penny about the Visiting, I really should. She would be loads of help as far as untangling the riddle Natasha told me. But it doesn’t feel right to tell anyone else about it before Baz knows. Yeah, she was one of Watford’s most notable headmistresses, and she’s made dozens of contributions to how we understand modern spellwork, but she was also Baz’s mum. That counts for more, I think. He has a right to know.

So I have to find him, because he has a mission to complete. From his mother, no less. And if he wants my help (would he ever want my help?), I’ll give it everything I’ve got. We could find Nicodemus together and bring Natasha Pitch her peace.

It’s not like I have anything else worthwhile to do. The Mage is acting like it’s my fifth year all over again: he’s never in his office, is always away from Watford on some unspecified business with his Men, and barely has any time for me. I _did_ go off on him in the room when I first got back to Watford—that might have something to do with it.

He wanted me to leave Watford. For my own safety, and supposedly the safety of everyone else at the school and the entire magical community at large. It doesn’t seem to fucking matter to him that Penny and I got snatched by the Humdrum without any warning at the end of last year. In my opinion, the Humdrum will find me if it wants to find me, and we’ll fight if it wants to fight, no matter where I am or what I’m doing. So I might as well be at school, trying to learn, trying to aim for normalcy. But he didn’t see what I meant. The Mage never seems to actually listen to me unless I’m parroting one of his plans back to him.

So I went off. Watford is the closest thing I have to a home, seeing as how I get shunted around every summer without any sense of permanence. I may not fit in with my classmates here at all, but at least I have a place. How could he not see that? How could he not _understand_?

That’s reason number two I decided to go looking for Baz: the Mage wouldn’t even notice I was gone. He didn’t ask me to go hunting for some obscure artifact or slogging through the murkier inner parts of the Wavering Wood to make deals with the nymphs and momeraths. If I went off my own, he wouldn’t be around to stop me.

I have a third reason why I decide to look for Baz (because every list should have at least three things on it—otherwise it’s just a pair of random thoughts). This one’s simple: I miss him. The world feels off kilter without him in it, like scales dipped too far to one side. And if nothing else, being the Chosen One has taught me to always fight to keep things balanced. Baz is my balance.

****

“Where do you think Baz is?”

“Oh Nicks and Slick, Simon, we’re not doing this again,” Penny says, rolling her eyes at me before looking back down at her moon sign chart. We’re supposed to be casting our full horoscope chart for Astrology, right down to the position of certain asteroids and decantes and all that mess, with a ten-page essay detailing what each placement means in our personality. This proves to be a bit tricky for me, seeing as how I don’t know my actual birthday. The Mage always made a point to visit me in the care homes every June, but never at precisely the same time. Supposedly that was to avoid building up a pattern of activity that the Old Families could track and use against him; I think it was more that he half-forgot about it some years until the end of the month.

“You’re a Cancer Sun through and through,” Pen had told me. “I don’t have to even know your birthday to figure that one out.”

“Oh, really?” I’d shot back. “How do you know?”

She’d pulled out our main Astrology textbook with the zodiac wheel and symbols stamped on the front. “Cancer: Quick to anger. Emotional, yet not necessarily vocal about feelings unless pushed to the brink. Deep sense of loyalty and desire to go above and beyond to protect their loved ones. Craving of stability, particularly in the domestic sphere.” She looked at me over the rims of her glasses. “Any of that sound familiar?”

            “That could be anybody,” I’d grumbled back, even though every part of that had hit me right in the gut. I’ve never known what to actually believe about what we study in Astrology, much like most other things about the magical world. As Penny likes to quote, ‘The stars incline us; they do not bind us.’ Yet Baz and I seem pretty star-crossed however you slice it.

(“You and Baz are a special case. A ripple in the cosmos, if you will,” Penny said. Then she’d immediately started looking at Vedic astrology to see how she and Micah fit together.)

“I’m not playing around, Pen,” I tell her, folding the corner of my notebook paper. “I do actually want to know where you think he is.”

She jots down a few more rows of numbers before looking up at me again. “I suppose there are any number of places he could be. I know the Pitches and Grimms own about twenty houses and properties spread across the country from what I’ve read of the Coven minutes. Some of the Grimms live in Scotland, too.”

 “You’ve read the Coven minutes?”

“The summers get awfully long, Simon.” (Like she needs to tell me that.)

“I don’t think Baz is house-hopping with his family, or whatever it is rich people do when they own multiple houses.” I frown down at my notebook, tapping my pen along the binding. I’m tempted to make a list of possibilities, like Pen and I do when we’re trying to figure out whatever mystery gets tossed at us for the year. Lists help me stay organized. Without them, my brain would be an even more chaotic mess than it already is.

“Why do you want to—never mind, I already know the answer.” Penny shakes her head so her violet-tinged hair bounces all over the place. I quite like violet; the color suits her well. “You think he’s off somewhere plotting.”

“It’s our eighth year, Pen. He’s got one more year to get in something big before we all graduate and the war gets much more serious. Personal. Wouldn’t you take advantage of that?”

“I don’t take advantage of people. I just try to be smarter than them.”

“Yeah, well that works for you,” I huff. “You don’t have any other ideas?”

She rolls her eyes up to the sky, a deep October blue with flat-bottomed clouds puffing overhead. “If he’s not with extended family, I’d have to guess he’s at the main Pitch mansion in Hampshire. Or maybe he’s at the club.”

“The club?”

“The social and sporting club for magicians that’s just outside London. Whispering Pines or whatever fluffy name they gave it. My family’s never been, though. Mum says the place is far too elitist.” Penny bites at her bottom lip. “Hang on. Weren’t you there with Agatha one year for Christmas?”

I blink. I do vaguely remember Agatha tugging at my tie to straighten it out before ducking into a shiny black car driven by Dr. Wellbelove, and being shoved into a room full of people holding champagne flutes and looking far fancier than I could ever hope to look in my lifetime. The place had those high Doric columns and checkered marble floors that scream extreme wealth, but Agatha and I split away from the main party and curled up in front of a fireplace in some plush side room. We had our first kiss there…

“Yeah, I think I was,” I mutter. The handkerchief in my pocket that I stole from Agatha, Baz’s handkerchief, feels like it’s burning in my pocket. “Hard to imagine Baz doing anything social at a club like that, though. I always thought his idea of socializing involved lurking in the shadows.”

“He has to do something over the summer to stay fit for football, you know.”

I _do_ know. Every summer when we’ve returned to Watford, Baz’s calves are still sharp and his stomach is toned. I usually look like I haven’t eaten three square meals or slept in a year, and he looks ready to try out for England’s national team. Tosser.

“I suppose that’s as good an idea as any,” I say after a bit. I flip the pages of my copy of the Astrology textbook open to the Mercury tables, just to make it look like I at least am pretending to care about my homework.

“You’re going out to look for him.” Penny’s eyes bore into my forehead—I can feel her stare without looking up.

I don’t give her an answer.

****

I should have told Penny I was leaving when I did, but I’m sure she already knows. It’s like sensing a disturbance in the Force when somebody dies: she and I have some kind of connection where she always manages to know where I am at any time. Maybe she put a homing spell on me in our first year and I just never noticed.

I choose not to tell her because I know she can’t come after me. Even if that homing spell was real, she couldn’t leave Watford as easily as I could. Premal would stop her at the gates, and then he’d call their mum, and then Ms. Bunce would rush up to the Mage’s office and demand to know why her daughter had to take off after the Chosen One because the Mage couldn’t keep tabs on his own Heir.

But I also know that if I told her when I was leaving, she’d insist on coming with me. And I have rarely ever been able to say no to Penny: she’s an unstoppable force when she wants something. This rescue mission, selfish as it sounds, is something I need to do on my own. Penny cares about Baz being gone (although she’d never say it outright, I think the two of them could be great friends if he wasn’t trying to off me all the time). But she doesn’t care enough to let it jeopardize her eighth year. I don’t hold that against her.

I frown down at my backpack. There’s no packing checklist that will adequately prepare me for whatever I may find, honestly. I could trudge up to this fancy health club and find Baz reclining on a white wicker chaise by the pool, sipping some fruity drink from a coconut and sneering at me over the tops of some ridiculously expensive sunglasses (Wayfarers, definitely). Then again, he could actually be in trouble. Like life-threatening trouble, and I’ll have to save him. What a bizarre twist of fate—saving your worst enemy.

I shove as many mint Aeros as I can fit inside the front pocket of my backpack, along with a couple bags of salt-n-vinegar Walkers I nicked from under Baz’s bed. I felt weird enough rummaging around in Baz’s chest of drawers for a change of pants and socks, but while I was in there, I figured Baz might feel better if I brought along some more casual clothes instead of his Watford uniform. A water bottle for each little slot on the sides of the knapsack, and an extra shirt and pants for me. (I sweat a lot. Side effect of boiling over with magic, sometimes literally.) The Sword of Mages, like always, comes to my side immediately when I summon it, and slips back into the void when I push it away. My wand’s tucked in the sleeve of my denim jacket, though I don’t know how much I’ll be needing it.

“ ** _Lights out!_** ” I mutter after checking over my boot laces one last time. The lightbulb in Baz’s lamp pops and shatters all over his nightstand. I try not to cringe about it after I shut the door and slip down the stairs and out of Mummer’s House.

The Great Lawn is empty, the grass thick with overnight rain. It’s still sprinkling, in fact, when I come up on the front gate. With mist in my eyes, I squint up at the words I’ve read every year when entering Watford again for the first time: _Magic separates us from the world. Let nothing separate us from each other._

I used to believe the Mage was putting those words into action, letting anybody who could speak with magic into the school and abolishing dangerous entry exams. But he’s also collected heavy taxes from the Old Families to sustain the school and deepened their resentment by erasing virtually any touch Headmistress Pitch left on the school.

I believe in what the Mage does, mostly. I’m just not sure I believe in him much anymore.

This next part is tricky, but at least I feel more comfortable casting spells on myself than on other people (we’re not talking about the hungover Agatha incident). With a heavy breath, I say “ ** _Nothing to see here!_** ” and point my wand at myself. My own magic trickles over me—a weird sensation, like getting maple syrup dumped over your head—and I feel much lighter, and definitely less visible. I wiggle my fingers, pull on my ears, stomp around in the grass. The only thing left behind is my footprints, but I’ll walk on the stone path until I reach the road.

I suck in a big breath and squeeze through the bars on the gate. If the four guards sitting outside the gate playing cards saw anything unusual, they didn’t say anything.

 

****

London was a mistake.

(Not in general, I mean—just my idea of coming here. This whole day has been a mistake, and the city feels like one now, too.)

I started working outward in a circle from Euston Station, eyeing every large or vaguely dilapidated building I walk past. Watford is hidden by layers of glamour, so it only makes sense for a magician’s club to be tucked into London the same way. The glamour wouldn’t burn my eyes like it does to Normals, but I can still feel it sparkling in the magical atmosphere. That’s how I can feel Watford before I see it when I’m on the train back at the end of every summer. Once I felt my invisibility starting to slide off like dish soap (four hours after casting it, Jesus Christ, Pen would be impressed), I ducked into an alley and waited until I completely faded back into existence. Didn’t want to go cutting about and suddenly scare the hell out of shoppers when my entire left hand became corporeal again.

I did eventually find the club. It’s out in Kensington, because of course it fucking would be, right next to the Queen’s Gate in Kensington Gardens. I only noticed it because the bars started vibrating with a low hum as soon as I walked past the gate for the third time, and the lion and unicorn from the royal crest were peering down at me as if to say _Are you completely daft? What are you waiting for?_ I checked over my shoulder to see if anyone else was around before pushing apart the bars on the gate, and I walked right through the wavering portal to the club.

Baz wasn’t there, to absolutely no one’s surprise. The front desk clerk got rather annoyed by all my questions, I could tell, and I know she recognized me. Being the Chosen One doesn’t automatically throw open any doors for me, and the club reeked of Old Family privilege like it had when Agatha and I had been there. Me striding in and asking about the oldest son of the Pitch family definitely raised more than a few red flags. I wouldn’t be surprised if the clerk had pressed a hidden button under her desk that secretly convened the Old Family heads for an emergency meeting about me.

I was able to learn a few things from the clerk, though. One: Baz last checked into the club on August 28th. That means he’s been missing for almost two months. Two: He was alone when he arrived at the club for tennis, and he presumably left by himself. Three: Club staff recovered his wand in the parking lot, but no mobile. The staff contacted the Grimm-Pitches when Baz didn’t come back to retrieve his wand within an hour, and his aunt Fiona is the one who showed up to claim it.

(Leaving a magical instrument unattended even for a short time is dangerous. They teach you right away at Watford not to leave your wand or whatever other object you use to channel magic laying about. Not only could someone else pick it up and hurt themselves trying to use it, but sometimes residual magic trickles out with unintended effects. Gareth learned that the hard way with his belt buckle in our first week of classes.)

Now I’m huddled up on a bus bench, stuffing my last mint Aero in my mouth and trying not to cry out of sheer frustration. My blood sugar’s low, and I should probably hunt out someplace to get a real dinner, but I think I’d puke it back up anyway. I wandered up and down the alleys in Kensington all afternoon, probably looking like an idiotic tourist, and circled Royal Albert Hall so many times I got dizzy. (That _does_ seem like a properly Baz to do—ditch Watford and lurk around a music hall, soaking in free music. Not like he couldn’t afford a ticket to any concert he wanted to attend there, the prat.) But Baz wasn’t anywhere to be found.

I’m not sure what I expected. While I was looking for the club in Soho, I thought for a wild moment that perhaps I’d been lured into another trap of Baz’s, like the chimera in third year. That I’d wander all the way out to London, only for him to materialize from the shadows and whisk me away to some underground vampire den where they suck the blood out of Normals for sport as well as sustenance. But as the hours wore on, that seemed less and less likely. Baz was out there somewhere, away from his family, with no wand to defend himself. He could actually be in trouble, and no one else seems to care.

No one else but me, that is.

I dab the tears away from my eyes with my scarf and sniffle. If only Baz could see me now, crying over _him_ , of all people. That would make him laugh. I can see him sneering at me, plain as day, then breaking out in mirthless giggles. Not that I’ve ever actually heard him giggle before—wonder what that sounds like.

Then an idea pops into my head. I haven’t used any magic all day, and I can feel it simmering just under my skin. I’m not about to go off or anything, but there’s something telling me I should try a spell to find Baz. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t risk it. Finding spells are notoriously difficult to get right, even for powerful magicians; you have to be specific with what you want, like Google, or else things could go disastrously wrong. Plus, I don’t know of any finding spells other than “ ** _Fine tooth comb!_** ” that Penny uses when she’s writing a paper and needs to quickly go through her resources.

Another idea springs to life, stranger than the last: _Sing a song._

Oh, Merlin.

Most of my professors and classmates seem to think I don’t get magic at all, but that’s not true. I don’t have a problem understanding the _mechanics_ of magic. I know how to say words in a particular order with particular emphasis and emotion and all that. Though I’m not the quickest thinker when it comes to spells in the moment (that’s what my sword is for), I can usually come up with something given enough time to think. My problem is never knowing just how much of my magic is going to pour out when I say anything. Is it a drip or a deluge? Who knows? Certainly not me.

So when the lyrics from a synthy rock song I remember hearing on the radio in one of the homes I was in come bubbling to my lips, I pause. Song lyrics are tricky spells for a number of reasons. For one thing, you have to know the song well enough to get the rhythm of the word just right. Tune doesn’t matter as much—you don’t have to sing like Bowie or anything—but the combined power of melody and lyrics gives a spell much more kick. And then you _really_ have to get the feeling right. There’s no half-arsing anything when it comes to casting a song.

(Which is why “ ** _Call me maybe!_** ” didn’t work when I yelled it down that one alleyway. I have no idea what the fuck that spell was supposed to do, but if Baz was actually in trouble, maybe it would compel him to use his mobile and call me somehow. But I don’t have even have a mobile that he could’ve called anyway, and I now know he doesn’t have a mobile with him, so the spell truly wouldn’t have worked. Sorry, Pen. Maybe your eighth-year spell can be figuring that one out.)

Anyway, I’ve got my hands stuffed in my pockets, because it’s so damn cold for late October. The night wind’s whipping the tails of my scarf around behind me, and there’s a song dripping with magic that’s begging to be sung. It’s not a question of if I dare to try—for all the stupid things I’ve done today, this spell would be among the more sensible. The problem is that the song is, well, kind of romantic. And I’m 98% sure it’s a bloke singing about a girl and not about another bloke. But honestly, I don’t think it matters. Magic doesn’t care much about gender.

 **“ _I know you’re out there somewhere_ ,”** I whisper into the dark. Well, it seems to be working: I can feel the charge of magic building inside me like a thunderhead. **“ _Somewhere, somewhere. I know you’re out there somewhere. Somewhere you can hear my voice._ ”**

I have no idea if Baz can actually hear me, wherever he is. But there’s a pull in my stomach, right behind my bellybutton, and it’s warming up with every word I say. I flash back to when I was eleven, and the Crucible shoved Baz and I together for the first time. That magic hooked around my insides and drew us together like magnets; this feels almost the same. Shit, this could actually work.

 **“ _I know I’ll find you somehow. Somehow, somehow. I know I’ll find you somehow._ ”** I take a breath. **“ _And somehow I’ll return again to you._ ” **

The pull burns, like a hot arrow pointing me in the direction I need to go. I stand up from the bus bench and simply follow the feeling. And even though I have absolutely no idea what street I’m running down, I know that I’m headed in the right direction.

 

**Baz**

Dreaming about Snow is the only thing that’s kept me sane. I would say that I’m thinking about him, but thinking implies that I’m still somewhat alive, and with every day that passes, I feel further on the other side of dead. All I know is darkness and blood sloshing in a plastic cup.

(Kidnapped by numpties. Outside the club, no less. When I get out of this, absolutely _no one_ is going to find out what happened to me, because I am not reliving the embarrassment by sharing the story.)

Bronze curls. Blue eyes. Golden skin kissed by sunlight and bursting with freckles and moles everywhere, because that’s how disgustingly beautiful Simon Snow is. He’s just what you’d hope the Chosen One would look like, because he looks like someone you’d want to pour your hopes for a better future into. A vessel for the opportunity of tomorrow. It’s more than a shame that we’ll have to take each other down in the end—assuming I get to the end, that is—because I don’t want to be the one that takes his light. I want to bask in it like the selfish prick I am. I want to soak in every moment of being close to the sun before I have to burn.

I love him so much it hurts.

That stupid cup is rattling around in here, still sloshing with lukewarm blood. I’ve decided not to wonder too much about where the numpties are getting their blood supply, though I’m fairly sure they’re not killing Normals to get it (not smart enough to do that, for one thing). The bendy straw brushes my fingertips and I duck down enough to grasp the plastic lid and hoist the cup up to my face. Drinking stops me from drifting too far into dreamland, yet my dreams keep me from lusting after blood. No winning either way.

Ultimately it doesn’t matter if I love Snow. He loves Wellbelove, or at least he _thinks_ he loves Wellbelove. And Agatha seems to think I’m the bad boy point on her love triangle, with how she went mooning after me into the woods at the end of last school year.  But I’m not here to save her from mundanity, or to give her cookie-cutter life a little edge. She needs to sharpen herself up if that’s her aim. People are far more interesting if they work on themselves rather than making others do the work for them.

By the way, how insulting—she’s tired of being boxed into the role of Conventionally Beautiful Supportive Girlfriend, yet Agatha pins me down as her brooding, mysterious escape route. If she fails to see the irony in that, then she’s just as dense as Snow is.

(I can still love Simon and call him dense. Pretty sure that’s the definition of love: being able to express affection and fondness for someone even though they’re perhaps the most ridiculous human being to ever exist.)

It also doesn’t matter that I love Snow because we’re in the middle of a war, a war in which we both have personal stakes. We can’t kiss and make the Old Families play nicely with the Mage just because love conquers all. At the end of everything, there would still be a mess to clean up regardless of whether we held hands through the carnage. Assuming we lived through it at all, that is.

(I refuse to believe that we’re going to die together like Romeo and Juliet in the crypt. Simon and I have lived through too much shit just to snuff each other out. When the time comes, I’m throwing down my wand—probably right before he rams that stupid Sword of Mages right through my heart. Which wouldn’t kill me immediately, but would give him the satisfaction of watching the life slip out of my eyes.)

I roll the straw between my fangs with my tongue and drink deeply. The numpties keep an oddly punctual schedule when it comes to blood refills: I can hear their plodding footsteps when one of them decides to open the coffin and check on me, which I would guess is about every other day. Every time they show up, I pretend to be sleeping so I play into their image of an undead vampire. Occasionally a numpty will nudge the coffin with their foot, or rather kick it like they’re doing a toe pass, just to check that I’m still conscious. They do have a vested interest in keeping me alive, however small.

Air rattles in the straw. Out of blood. Nothing left but me and my thoughts. Maybe if I _do_ try to go to sleep, I’ll be able to have pleasant dreams again—

“ _YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!_ ”

What the fuck?


	2. Such a Gorgeous Sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Baz gets the hero he needs, and a celebratory midnight dinner is had in Waterloo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "Friday I'm in Love" by The Cure. The full lyric is "Always take a big bite, it's such a gorgeous sight/To see you eat in the middle of the night", but that would have been too long for a chapter title.

**Simon**

The pull in my stomach led me to Twickenham. As soon as I got off the train, it felt like someone had cast “ ** _You’re getting warmer!_** ” over my entire body, which meant I actually cast a spell without having practiced it before. If only Penny were here to witness it.

I summon the Sword of Mages under my breath, and it materializes immediately in my hand. Who knows what’s lurking under the bridges out here? Trolls usually hang out by the Thames, so they’re out of the question. The stream here isn’t deep enough for any aquatic monsters, except maybe a mini kelpie that swam away from its home pool. In other words, I have no idea what waits for me under here except for Baz. I’m not taking chances regardless.

My boots squish into the ground when I duck under the arch of the bridge. This is probably the most conspicuous sneaking I’ve ever done in my life.

Then I hear the rumbling. And the clacking, like rocks rolling up against one another. I raise my sword, and I yell at the same time some lumbering thing bellows at me.

“ _YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!_ ”

My blade cracks against stone, and whatever was in front of me thuds to the ground. A giant fleece blanket flutters in front of me, filthy and patterned with blue snowflakes. Oh, Morgana. They’re numpties. Bloody numpties.

Another numpty comes charging up to meet me, so I raise my sword again. This time, instead of slicing across its chest, I bang the flat of the blade up the side of its head, hoping to knock it out. I must be successful, because I hear boulders slam into the ground again and shake the bridge above us with the force.

“ ** _Let there be light!_** ” I yell blindly. I hate fighting in the dark—if I have to mutilate something, I need to at least see everything in my path that needs to be cut down. Light erupts under the bridge, throwing out odd shadows where the numpties stand, clutching at their covers and grumbling at the sudden brightness. It takes a moment for me to realize that the light is coming from _within_ me, from my chest, like a fog lamp tucked under my jumper.

Wicked.

“Where is Baz?” I demand of the numpties. Of course they don’t answer; I don’t know what I was expecting. Pretty sure numpties barely communicate much with any creature other than each other. Instead, three of them shuffle toward me, trying to be menacing but really just looking pathetic with leaves and old copies of the _Daily Mail_ plastered over their rocky bodies.

“ _Where is he?_ ” I yell, mostly for effect. But I am truly losing my patience. If the spell got it wrong, and I’ve come slogging all the way out to Winchester for nothing, I am _really_ going to go off. I don’t want to kill the numpties, just like I haven’t wanted to kill any of the things that’ve died around me, but I may have little choice in a moment.

I can feel every ounce of my magic simmering to the surface, ready to boil over. I grasp the hilt of my sword and inwardly brace for impact.

 

**Baz**

Aleister Crowley, it’s Snow. Out of all the people who might have come to save me, it’s Snow. I don’t know if I’m feeling more blessed or cursed in this moment.

I hear him yelling at the numpties about me, and I almost want to laugh. Leave it to the Chosen One to attempt to reason with one of the stupidest magical creatures in existence before blowing them to pieces when he goes off.

I can always tell when Snow is about to go off. Vampirism gives you a very acute sense of smell, and I can pick up on a whiff of his smoldering magic well before he’s ever aware of what’s happening. (Experience also helps: I’ve set him off myself enough times.) The air grows thick with smoke, like a bonfire licking out of control. And Crowley, I don’t want him going off down here. I could probably withstand the blast, but there’s no explaining away the explosion to any of the Normal locals without causing a panic. Or worse—what if the Humdrum takes the chance to show up again?

None of those possibilities sound appealing. I have to stop him.

“Snow!” I yell, kicking at the lid of the coffin. The numpties did something to my right leg when they caught me, because it goes numb without warning every so often. Of course it’s my favored leg, so I’m kicking opposite of what I normally do. Coach Mac would be proud. “ _Snow!_ ”

            The smoke, I think, turns back a bit, almost hesitating. I can’t see what is going on outside, but I can picture Snow standing there, sword in hand, his head cocked like a curious dog because he swore he heard something. Yes, you heard _me_ , you beautiful idiot. Snap out of it!

“I’m giving you one more chance,” Snow growls to the numpties. “Tell me. Where. Baz. Is. I don’t care if you hand him over willingly or not. I’ll get him myself.”

Now I’m starting to understand why princesses always swoon over their rescuers in fairy tales. I should not be so thrilled by this threatening heroic monologue, yet here I am. Hopeless.

Crowley.

“Just tell me. P-please.”

Did his voice just crack? I can feel the smoke starting to build again, but if possible, there’s a more desperate edge to his magic. Simon isn’t the most articulate at the best of times, yet I’ve never heard him actually talk through any high state of emotion. He seems to be hanging onto himself, like he doesn’t want to go off.

And then I feel another surge. Oh no.

“ _Simon!_ ” I kick as hard as I can into the lid of the coffin; I can hear the lock shudder on the outside. “ ** _Keep it together!_** ”

I don’t mean to speak with magic, but it slips out anyway. Once again, I feel Snow’s magic recede, if only a little compared to before. How I managed to cast a spell without my wand is beyond me. Only a handful of powerful magic users are able to do that regularly—occasionally you can do it in high-stress situations. I suppose this counts.

“ ** _Stay cool!_** ” I cast. “ ** _Nice and easy!_** ”

And then he boils over.

 

**Simon**

Penny tells me I’m an absolute terror when I go off, a demon. _Standing near you is like standing by a supernova, Simon,_ she described to me once over tea. _You burn and burn, and I don’t think you’re ever going to go out._

The fire always starts at my sword and curls up onto my hand. Wind starts whipping around me, even in someplace devoid of air, and the flames dance around me. I never remember what happens after I start swinging my sword; I always come back around to consciousness to see the blind damage I’ve dealt. That, I think, is the worst part of it: I don’t _mean_ to cause so much destruction, but something primal within me takes over and strikes out at everything within reach. 

I’ve never hurt Penny when she’s been by me, though. I’ve never hurt Baz, either, and he’s been next to me more often than Penny has when I’ve gone off. Maybe I protect them without thinking. Maybe that’s why I’m not as worried about going off under this bridge. If Baz really is down here with the numpties, I won’t hurt him. I won’t let myself hurt him.

My hand itches to swing my flaming blade. Any numpties who were stupid enough to stay close by flinch as soon as I raise my sword. I slide my backpack off my shoulders and fling it away into the mud, not wanting that to burn. The only things here that will burn are anyone who stands between me and Baz.

A scream rips out of my throat, and lash out, slicing two numpties across the belly in one fell swoop. They crumble into ugly cairns, and I jump on top of one, swinging out at the others. A few stagger back against the opposite end of the bridge, while three others roar and lunge for me. I take them down just as easily, though I think they’re more concussed by the light rolling off my body than anything else.

“ _Simon!_ ” I hear over the crackle of the flames.

I peer into the darkness, searching for the voice. That was him. Definitely him.

_Baz._

I yell and I slash. I’m a whirling inferno cutting numpties down to rubble. At some point I lose my vision—it always goes white after the magic has poured out of me for a solid minute—and it is just me and the Sword of Mages, a blur of fire and steel.

They took Baz. I can’t burn forever, because then he’ll get burned to a crisp. (Vampires are flammable, _very_ flammable. Not that I’ve tried setting him on fire; that kind of magic is Baz’s domain.) If I came all this way, probably with the Mage’s Men out on my tail, just to leave empty-handed, I will be beyond pissed.

I do stop burning, eventually. I’m never sure when my magic decides to call it quits, or if the Sword of Mages tells my magic to sod off. My eyesight fades back in like a weird movie scene transition, and everything is ash. Black scorch marks claw up the underside of the bridge, ones that can’t be explained away by Normal means. The locals are going to have an absolute fit trying to figure out what dark rituals some teenagers chose to try under here.

Something shifts. A long wood box, lacquered to a shine, and I realize that where Baz must be. They locked him in a bloody coffin.

Unbelievable.

 

**Baz**

Everything around me was on fire. I could tell, even from inside the coffin. My worst fear of Simon going off down here came to life, and part of my brain argues that it was because I wasn’t there to talk him down from it. I’ve done that before, without casting spells. Usually all I have to do is remind him to breathe—funny how easily you forget to do the simplest things when stressed to your limits.

But I wasn’t there to stop it. And I’m sure he killed all the numpties in the process, which I definitely _didn’t_ want to have happen. They might be hulking and stupid, and they may have kidnapped me with no explanation, but they didn’t deserve to die. Snow never means to have collateral damage, but it’s unavoidable with his power. And in this case, it almost sounded like he wanted to rend the numpties to pieces.

_Breathe. Breathe._

It’s so hot inside this coffin, and the flames outside only intensify everything. I need oxygen, and the fire is swallowing every last bit of it in the vicinity. I take gulping breaths, in and out, but that doesn’t magically add more air in here. Great. I’m going to die by suffocation from being locked in a coffin by fucking numpties. I’m going to—

“Baz?”

The latch on the outside must have snapped open without my noticing. Kneeling above me, face smudged with soot, is Snow. He’s still shimmering orange at the edges like a sparkler, the way he always does when he’s coming down from an explosion of magic.

Crowley, he’s so pretty. Too pretty for just having slaughtered something.

“Simon,” I croak, forgetting to antagonize him by using his last name. I’m just too tired for it, really.

“Are you…” He reaches a hand over the side of the coffin, then hesitates. I think he was about to touch my cheek. Maybe he’s forgetting, too. Forgetting that we’re supposed to be enemies.

“I feel like absolute shit, yes, thanks for asking.”

“Right. Yeah. Um…” Simon glances over his shoulder and whips around so fast, the dirty curls on top of his head bounce every which direction. “Shit. Hang on.”

He runs off, squelching through the mud. I take the chance to sit up for the first time in ages. _That’s_ what it feels like to use your arms again, and oh _hell_ , that’s my back. I’ve got a bone-deep chill in both shoulders that isn’t budging any time soon, and my right leg is still numb despite wiggling my toes and flexing my ankle. Brilliant. At least I’m not completely dead.

I peer into the dark as Simon comes dashing back under the bridge, a backpack in his hand. He slides back down onto his knees in a way that would make Coach Mac wince (he hates celebratory slides on the pitch—banned them three years back) and unzips the largest compartment.

“Pack a lunch?” I quip.

“No,” Simon replies, letting the joke fly by. “Your clothes. I hope they’re not all muddy.”

“You brought my clothes?”

“I—well—” He scratches his cheek with one hand, pawing through the backpack with the other. “Didn’t know what condition you’d be in when I found you, and uh, sometimes—changing clothes is good? Like after you’ve had…a rough experience.”

I’m about to say that Simon doesn’t have the slightest clue what kind of rough experience I’ve been through lately, but that’s not entirely true. If ever there was someone who embodies getting the short end of the stick, it would be Simon Snow. The worst Chosen One to ever be chosen. He’s gone through more shit than being locked in a coffin for who knows how long, though that doesn’t make my torture any less valid.

Still, none of this is adding up to any real answer. Not only did he come slogging through muck and mire to find me, but he brought me a change of clothes, too? What kind of sworn enemy does that for their sworn enemy?

I remind myself that maybe, just like me, he’s forgetting we’re supposed to hate each other. I can’t let myself hope for love, obviously, but I can accept civility.

“Turn around,” I mutter, shuffling my knees up to stand. Simon jumps to his feet and obliges, and I struggle to put weight on my right leg but try not to show it. I end up throwing a hand out to his shoulder to steady myself and find myself remembering the countless times he’s walked shirtless around our room. Him and his absurd bare torso, covered in an explosion of freckles and moles like the rest of his body. Ugh.

He brought me a surprising selection of clothes, to say the least. I try not to blush thinking about him digging around in my chest of drawers looking for this stuff. A stretched out Talking Heads T-shirt that I’d definitely forgotten about for over a year. The red wool jumper Daphne gave me last Christmas. Clean pants and socks (bless him). My pair of jeans that are thinning at the knees from too many impromptu football matches on the weekends. And finally, my black leather jacket from about two years ago. It’s a tad snug in the shoulders, but I’m not complaining about it now. What’s more engrossing is the thought of Simon trailing his fingers over the sleeve, trying to piece together when he would have seen me wearing this jacket. He doesn’t know that I dress like a punk when he’s not around.

The soiled tennis whites get shoved back into Simon’s backpack for me to deal with later. “You can turn around now,” I say with a toss of my head.

Simon spins around and nearly slips in the mud. Graceful as always.

“Right then,” he says, bending down to scoop up his backpack. Making a face, he shakes it gingerly to get some of the bigger drops of mud off. I suppose with all the magic he spent fighting the numpties, he doesn’t want to chance having a “ ** _Clean as a whistle!_** ” go disastrously wrong. I wouldn’t either, to be fair. “Shall we get going?”

“Where are we, anyway?”

“Twickenham.”

How the hell did those numpties drag me all the way to Twickenham from the club? I shake my head—that’s a question for another time. “Don’t suppose you drove out here, did you?”

“Yes, Baz. I stole the Mage’s combat Jeep and drove through Greater London to find you. He has utterly no clue it’s missing, and none of the Mage’s Men have thought to come after me yet.”

Ooh, detailed sarcasm. A fresh change of pace. “So it’s the train, then, to get out of here.”

“That’s how I got here.”

What did I do to earn such devotion?

 

**Simon**

I’ve stood in the train station loads of times before, but none of those have been as awkward as waiting with Baz in Twickenham Station. At fuck o’clock in the morning. Actually, it’s about 11:00 PM according to the automated ticket machine. Thank Merlin we don’t have to interact with other humans at this hour. I don’t think I could handle dealing with a judgmental ticket booth attendant or anyone else.

It’s enough that Baz keeps shooting furtive glances at me out of the corner of his eye when he thinks I’m not paying attention, thumbing the corner of his ticket. He’s barely said a word since we walked out from under the bridge and back up onto the street, though I could tell he wanted to gripe about having to walk to the train station. Has he been in one of these before? I kind of assumed he had, but maybe his family really _is_ too posh for anything so common.

I didn’t go find Baz to seek his gratitude. Really, I’m trying to piece together a reason for anything I’ve just done over the past few hours. Not only is Baz going to want an explanation, but Penny will, too, once we get back to Watford. The Coven will want answers, and probably the Mage. I say probably because I’m not so sure he remembers I exist after our argument.

Maybe I _should_ have stolen his Jeep. I’ve never driven before, but I could have figured out how to spell the thing so I would have energy to focus on finding Baz.

“What’s the plan?” Baz mutters to me.

            “Hmm?”

“The plan, Snow. Do you want to carry me back over the threshold of Watford like a bride, or did you plan on throwing me at the Mage’s feet as a war prize?”

“Could you not be a prick for once?”

“I could. It would be off brand.”

“Jesus Christ.” I press the heel of my hand into my forehead. “The Mage doesn’t know about this. Any of this. He doesn’t know that I left Watford at all. I didn’t steal his Jeep, not because I didn’t want to, but because I didn’t think to do it. You’re nobody’s war prize.” The thought of carrying Baz over any threshold like a bride is also such a strange mental picture that I can’t shake it.

Baz’s eyes widen. “You snuck out?”

“Not exactly sneaking if he barely notices I’m there, is it?”

“How do you forget you have an atomic bomb in your pocket,” Baz shakes his head, the question coming out flat. “So you went out to find me alone.”

“Yes.”

“Bunce didn’t help you?”

“She doesn’t know I’m gone, either.”

“Crowley.”

The train rushes into the station at that moment, coming to a hard stop before us. Baz ushers me in with a mock bow, and I bite back the weak temptation to make a joke about inviting him in after me. I suppose vampires can come and go freely through public spaces; it’s private homes where they have to be personally welcomed.

There’s really no hiding that secret from me anymore. The stench of stale blood hit my nose as soon as I opened the coffin. Judging by the number of disposable plastic cups laying around in the muck under the bridge, that’s how the numpties were feeding Baz. I try not to think of him huddled in the dark, sipping blood through a straw. He must have been terrified the entire time. No wand, no mobile, no other way to summon help. If I hadn’t found him, he might have wasted away to nothing.

Baz doesn’t look half bad right now under the fluorescent lights of the train car. His head is tilted back against the window, eyes closed, arms draped over the back of my seat and the empty seat next to us. Only _he_ could manage to look so fit after vegetating in a coffin. His black hair hangs all around his face, thick with sweat yet flowing freely. He’s thinner, because his cheekbones jut out a bit too dangerously, and I caught a glimpse of his ribs when he was tugging on his T-shirt and jumper. After a few weeks back at Watford, eating real food, he’ll look more like himself again.

“What are you thinking about?” Baz asks.

“Hmm?” I hum.

“You’re looking at me. I can tell because your eyes are practically boring into my face.”

“Your eyes are closed, though.”

“I’m very observant, Snow.” He rolls his head to the side and looks at me through his eyelashes. Fuck, he has long eyelashes for a bloke. “So what are you thinking about? Tell me before the gears in your mind burn out from overwork.”

“I don’t have a plan,” I blurt out.

Baz blinks at me.

“I don’t have a plan,” I repeat. “But it had been six bloody weeks, and I couldn’t stand not knowing where you were. I didn’t know if your family had pulled you out of Watford for some big plot, or if you’d if you’d decided to sod off on your eighth year and went rogue, but I just wanted to know…know where you had gone. And if I found you, I wanted to bring you home.”

Baz is staring back at me now, and panic is starting to roil in my stomach. I’ve said too much. He probably wants to punch me here on this empty train car, with no witnesses, because I’ve left myself too vulnerable yet again. What a perfect nightcap to this maddening chain of events, really.

Instead, he does something I don’t expect. He takes his arm off from the top of the seat behind me, grabs my right hand with his left, and threads our fingers together. Baz has such long fingers (how can a bloke have such pretty fingers?), and his slender palm is cool against mine.

 

**Baz**

I grabbed his hand because I’m feeling a little lightheaded (stale blood does not a happy vampire make) and on the verge of floating off into the ether. Not physically, of course, but mentally. Having something warm to touch keeps me grounded and safe.

Simon starts running his thumb over my knuckles, and I must be touch-starved as hell from being stuck in that coffin, because that simple gesture feels like the most loving caress in the world. Either that or I’m that besotted with him. Doesn’t matter.

“I think I have enough quid for Maccies,” he says thoughtfully after a long pause. “There’s one in Waterloo Station, and we have to get off there anyway.” I love how he doesn’t bother to ask if I’m hungry first, just implies that we’re going. This must be what it’s like to be the Chosen One: to be so powerful that mere suggestions make people bend to your will.

“Is it open?” I actually _am_ hungry for real food, and since there’s no chance we’re going to get back to Watford until well into the morning, I can’t exactly break into the kitchens for a snack.

“I have no fucking idea. I don’t have a mobile to check.”

“I like the one in County Hall better.”

“Are you seriously getting testy over where we get burgers at this hour of the night?”

“I’m taking the piss.” Right now, I’d go anywhere with him, truly. But I am _really_ hungry, and I don’t fancy walking all through London and battling the early drunks staggering out of the pubs just to find something more satisfying to eat. Two Big Macs would cover me for now, I think. And maybe a large order of fries to share.

Who am I kidding? Simon would never share food. I’m amazed he’s still holding my hand, willingly sharing space with me, but he hasn’t pulled away in the slightest. Not that I want him to.

“We’ll be there in 10 minutes,” he says, squinting at the overhead display cycling through the upcoming stops and the clock. “Think you can hold out for that long?”

“I held out for six weeks, didn’t I?”

“Not well.”

He’s got me there.

Talking suddenly seems like a monumental task, so I lean my head back against the window again and close my eyes again, just enough that I can look at Simon without seeming like I’m ogling (although I am, a bit). For once, he’s unglued his Watford uniform from his skin and is wearing actual clothing. A flannel shirt with the top three buttons undone, all the better to watch his Adam’s apple jump every time he swallows. Some faded black T-shirt with the screen print nearly worn off underneath it. Jeans that stretch just enough over his thighs…

“Where did you get _those_?”

Simon snaps out of his typical thousand-yard stare and blinks over at me. “What?”

“The things on your feet. When did you get Doc Martens?”

“I don’t think they’re Doc Martens,” he replies, bending down to peel the tongue away from his ankle and read the label. “Oh. Guess they are. Uh, found them left behind at the home I was in this summer. Nobody else wanted them, so I took ‘em.” And then he honest to Merlin knocks his heels together like Dorothy in _The Wizard of Oz._ As if he needed to be any more precious.

“You look like one of my aunt’s drummer boy castoffs in those hideous things.”

“Tell her she’s a little too old for my tastes. What is she, fifty?”

“Fuck off,” I snap, but I’m grinning all the same. Shit, he actually said something funny. “I’m going to have to call her once we get to Waterloo.”

“Why?”

“Because I would like at least one of my family members to know I’m alive, and I don’t remember Daphne’s phone number.” Not that I would call Daphne. She would get far too emotional for me to deal with at this hour. And my father is rubbish about answering his mobile unless he’s expecting a call from a Coven member. Fiona will pick up the phone, guaranteed, and she has enough sense to know when to talk and when I need space. Even when she’s pissed, she completely understands my boundaries, and moreover, respects them.

“Yeah,” Simon says, nodding. “Yeah, I suppose you have to tell someone.”

“Plus, since you insisted on taking us the opposite direction from Hampshire, we’re going to need a place to sleep tonight. Fiona’s flat is small, but I think she’s got a spare bed.” She better still have a spare bed—hopefully one of her boyfriends didn’t use the mattress as part of a found art installation or something equally shitty.

“That sounds amazing,” he yawns. I’m fairly sure it’s unintentional, but he squeezes my hand as he stretches his mouth open, and I try not to think about how, in an hour or two, we might be sharing a bed out of necessity.

Crowley, I’m fucked.

 

**Simon**

Waterloo Station does not come fast enough. Somehow I always forget exactly how _much_ of London there is, how far everything sprawls, which is odd since I’ve lived in a couple care homes right smack in the city. The train pushes through Vauxhall and Lambeth, then slides alongside Archbishop’s Park. If I crane my neck, I can see St. George’s, and on the other end of the Thames is Big Ben towering over the water.

Baz isn’t taking any of this in; his eyes are still closed, and we’re still holding hands. Every minute or so, he squeezes my hand—I think to make sure that it’s still there—and I squeeze back, like we’re passing a heartbeat back and forth. Part of my brain wonders when he’s going to take advantage of this and crush my hand to dust with his (possible) vampire super-strength, but the rest of me shouts down the doubt. I just saved his life. Baz has no reason to hurt me.

I don’t know what this means, this new development of us holding hands, but I don’t feel like letting go.

We’re the only ones who get off at Waterloo, and aside from a few lurking tourists who bailed early on the pub scene, the station is largely empty. It’s vaguely pathetic, but I find the McDonald’s by scent alone, ignoring all the station maps and following the smell of oily French fries. Baz is at my side, fixing tired glares at anyone who looks at us funny. I suppose we do look like a couple of street kids ready to jump the first person who crosses us, although that was completely unintentional on my part when picking out Baz’s change of clothes.

(Since when has Baz worn a leather jacket? Since when has he owned _jeans_? Have I just never noticed this before?)

The pockmarked cashier behind the counter at McDonald’s looks about as exhausted as I feel while I stare up at the menu board. Baz orders a double cheeseburger, which I immediately upgrade to two Big Macs without hesitation despite his protests. Another cheeseburger. Two large orders of fries. Two shakes, one strawberry and one chocolate. I hand the cashier a twenty and two fivers, and tell him to keep the change if there’s any left. Math and extra money are just too much to handle at this hour, when everything seems a bit too much.

I tuck into my fries immediately once we sit down in our booth, but Baz stares at one of his Big Mac boxes, almost like he’s trying to open it with a nonverbal spell. He glances back up when he catches me staring.

“You _are_ hungry, right?” I ask thickly through a mouthful of potato and salt. Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed so much food on him in one go—junk food, at that.

“Starving,” he replies.

“Then go on. Have at it.”

“I can’t.”

Ordinarily I’d ask, but I just lift my eyebrows instead.

Baz leans over the table, his voice dropped to a husky whisper. “My fangs pop when I eat.”

Well. Now _that’s_ out in the open. I’d always expected the revelation that Baz was a vampire to be much more dramatic, like in the throes of our final battle or when the Humdrum finally comes to render the World of Mages to pieces. Definitely did not expect it to happen over a shiny Formica table in a McDonald’s at near midnight, right after we’d spent the better part of an hour holding hands on the train. I feel a bit robbed, really.

“No one’s watching,” I say with a shrug. And it’s true: aside from an elderly couple sharing decaf coffee at a table by the door, and the cashier and fry cook cleaning behind the counter, nobody else is in here.

“You are, though.”

“I won’t mind if you suck the blood out of your Big Mac.”

“Very funny.” But Baz seems to take this as an invitation to eat, because he open up the box in front of him and lifts out his burger. True to his word, his fangs sink into the bun as soon as he takes a bite. They’re long, probably the length of my thumb, and pearly white like the rest of Baz’s teeth.

“Wow,” I breathe. That’s a completely daft thing to say when watching a vampire eat, I know, but I’m more impressed by the color rising to Baz’s cheeks than anything else. He was so pale inside that coffin, and now he looks more vibrant. Alive.

I slide my foot in between his under the table. More than anything, I want to be close to him. He’s alive, and I don’t want any of this to go away come morning.

 

**Baz**

I’m beyond fucked. Simon is giving me such soft looks, and I’m certain he’s trying to play footsie with me under the table with his feet stuffed into those cloddish Doc Martens, and I absolutely cannot handle another gay crisis right now on top of everything else I’m trying to process. I’ve half a mind to ask him about Wellbelove—they must have broken up if he feels comfortable doing whatever the hell we’re doing right now—but I don’t want to spoil the mood. That’s a question for later, when we’re back on familiar turf. Or in Fiona’s flat.

Shit, Fiona. I have to call her.

]Simon looks startled as I stand abruptly from the table and stride back over to the counter, asking if they have a phone I can use. The cashier hands me a grimy cordless handset wordlessly, then goes back to mopping. My thumb flies over the keys for her number, and the dial tone seems to stretch into infinity.

“Who the fuck is this?” comes the croaked reply.

“Fiona.” I can’t help that my voice cracks in the middle of her name. “Fiona, it’s Baz.”

“Jesus Christ!” I hold the phone away from my ear—my aunt shrieks like a primary schooler when she’s excited. “Baz, holy shit, did the numpties let you use the phone? Where are you?”

“Waterloo. McDonald’s. By the train station.”

A beat of silence. “They’ve had you holed up in the _train station_?”

“No, Crowley, no. Simon—I mean—Snow, he showed up. Burnt and slashed all the numpties to rubble, and he saved me from the coffin they locked me in.” The cashier is side-eyeing me like I’ve sprouted three sets of arms, and I resist the urge to flip him the bird so he’ll stop eavesdropping. Too tired for this shit. “They dragged me to Twickenham, and then we got the train to here—”

“You’re with the Chosen One?” Fiona’s tone is flat-out incredulous, and I don’t blame her.

“Yes, I know it makes no bloody sense. Believe me, I’m still trying to work out how he found me myself.” Seriously, I would like to know how he did it. Tracking spells are notoriously difficult to get right, and with Simon having loads of raw power but very little control, the odds of any spell working is absurdly small. I’ll even say it’s impossible. Yet here we are.

“Stay right fucking there,” Fiona snarls. I hear the jingle of her scooping her keys up on the other side. “I’m calling Malcolm before I get you.”

“You’re doing no such thing,” I snarl back. If anyone is breaking the news of my rescue to my father, it’s going to be me. “And you’re bringing Snow back to your flat, too.”

“Since when are you in charge, you punk?”

“Since now,” I say, and I hang up. Her flat is in Whitechapel, so it won’t take too long for her to arrive. Fifteen minutes if she obeys traffic laws, ten minutes if she doesn’t. I place the phone back on the freshly wiped counter, thank the cashier, and head back to the booth. Simon has managed to pack away his cheeseburger and about half his fries in the time I was gone; I don’t think he eats food so much as suctions it in like a vacuum cleaner.

“Fiona’s coming in ten minutes,” I report, crossing my legs under the table.

The corner of Simon’s mouth twitches. “Better get eating then,” he says, nodding at my Big Mac.

He’s right. He’s so right, and I fucking hate him for it. My stomach feels like it’s shredding itself out of hunger, but I know that if I eat too fast, everything will come right back up again. The last thing I really want to do is spend the night heaving into a toilet in a McDonald’s bathroom after being freed from numpties, although my imagination is suddenly dubbing Simon into the scenario, holding my hair away from my face and rubbing circles on the small of my back…

(I’m disturbed. And so far gone it isn’t funny.)

The next ten minutes pass with little conversation as I try to swallow down the next Big Mac and Simon inhales his strawberry shake. He stops shuffling his feet against mine, which is a mild disappointment. Instead, he decides to pull faces at me while drinking. Raising eyebrows, puckering his lips like a fish, the works. I make faces right back at him, picking up our bizarre nonverbal conversation. This is all completely juvenile, but I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun with anyone.

And then Fiona rolls in like a storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: countless kisses, two homecomings, and one dramatic entrance.


	3. You Get Lighter the More It Gets Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which kisses, magic, and promises abound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from "A Sky Full of Stars" by Coldplay.

**Simon**

Fiona is fucking terrifying.

She came stomping into McDonald’s, wand drawn in her left hand and car keys bunched up in the other, eyes sweeping the restaurant until they finally landed on us. Then she seemed to realize she was around Normals and tucked her wand back up her sleeve, glaring daggers at Baz. Baz, on the other hand, looked completely nonplussed by Fiona’s dramatic entrance. He just sat there, legs crossed, sipping primly from his shake.

“ _You_ ,” she hissed, walking over to our booth. I’m still the only magician I know who leaks magic, but I could feel the raw heat of Fiona’s magic emanating from her body, like a gas burner that licks high up the side of a frying pan right when you turn it on.

“Fiona,” he replied coolly, letting the straw pop away from his lips.

“Get in the fucking car.”

“Is it pulled up front?”

“Don’t be an ass,” she snapped, but I could see the trace of a smile working on her mouth. “I’m not your chauffeur.”

“Are you sure about that?” But Baz had already stood up from the table, nodding at me to do the same. I jammed the last few French fries in my mouth and haphazardly gathered up our trash to toss it before leaving.

We’re at Fiona’s flat now, after what had to be the most awkwardly tense car ride of my life. Fiona is banging around in the hallway, looking for blankets while swearing under her breath, while Baz is sitting next to me on the soft leather sofa, rolling his eyes at a copy of _The Daily Mail_ he snatched up from the coffee table. Our thighs are touching, and I’m trying not to dwell too much on that.

“Atrocious,” Baz mutters, flinging the paper to the side in disgust.

“Is Fiona okay with us being here?” The question slips out before I can stop it.

“What do you mean?”

“She seems pretty pissed off.”

“Well, yeah. Her favorite nephew calls her after being kidnapped for six weeks, only to find out that he’s with his sworn enemy in a train station McDonald’s and just wants a ride to her place. If it weren’t for the numpties calling for ransom, I’m sure she’d think I made the whole thing up to get out of going to Watford for eighth year.” Baz rolls his eyes. “As if I’d ever miss school on purpose.”

This is true. For all the ridiculous plots he’s cooked up to kill me over the years, Baz has never let any of it interfere with his classes. Kind of irritating, really, because he could actually be scheming something and make it look like he was focusing hard on writing his History essay or anything else.

“Plus I think she’s angry that you found me and she didn’t.” He smirks at me. “The Grimm-Pitch family doesn’t need a reason to owe the Chosen One any favors.”

“I’m not calling in any fav—” I start to say, but Fiona walks in, her arms laden with several blankets.

“Bed’s ready,” she says gruffly, setting the blankets down on the floor. I think it’s meant to be a joke, but not one I’m meant to laugh at. Jesus, she’s unsettling. “Couldn’t find any extra pillows, so you’ll have to use the ones on the sofa. Don’t get any ideas about sleeping in forever, either. I _will_ call Malcolm if your ass isn’t awake before noon.”

“That’s a criminal expectation, Fiona,” Baz replies, but he doesn’t argue with her as he gets up to snatch up a dark green wool blanket from the pile. He can take as many wool blankets as he wants; I roast half to death under a normal duvet at Watford. 

“Sleep as long as you want, Snow,” he tells me when Fiona turns and leaves to head to her bedroom. He leans down to scoop up another blanket, then starts rearranging the sofa pillows. I can already tell he’s going to wake up with a neck cramp in the morning: back in our room, he sleeps mounded up on three overstuffed feather pillows like he’s Sleeping Beauty. Here, he doesn’t have that luxury. “Fi can’t punish _you_ for sleeping in.”  

“You called me Simon,” I blurt out.

Baz pauses, one knee pressed into the sofa cushion in the midst of his rearranging. “When?”

“Before, at Maccies. When you called Fiona.”

“I did no such thing.”

“You slipped up and called me Simon, then switched to Snow.” I’m grinning so hard my cheeks hurt. “I heard you.”

“You did not,” Baz argues, but I can see a tinge of red on the tips of his ears.

“You _did._ And you actually said it when I found you, too. When I—” I cut myself off. How soon is too soon to rehash the fact that I found Baz in a coffin?

“You heard what you wanted to hear,” he snaps, dropping the last pillow into place. It looks like he built more of a nest on the sofa rather than a proper bed. “I’m taking a shower.”

“Don’t drown,” I tease, just as he rushes past me to the hallway. Once he’s out of the room, I grab one of the smaller blankets to ball under my head and slip out of my dirt-caked jeans. I got under Baz’s skin for once instead of the other way around. He was _blushing_.

I feel accomplished.

**Baz**

He was teasing me. He was fucking _teasing_ me, and I got so flustered that I couldn’t stand to be around him. How the hell are we supposed to sleep in the same room tonight?

 _At least you’re not sharing a bed,_ my traitorous brain suggests as I step under the scalding stream of the shower. As if I needed to follow _that_ particular train of thought at this moment.

Fiona doesn’t have any of my hair products here—not that I would expect her to keep any, for as infrequently as I visit—so I’ll have to do with a quick soap and rinse. That should sustain me until we go back to Hampshire, where I can give myself a proper cleanup.

I suppose Snow will have to come with us to Hampshire as well. There’s no way I’m sending him back to Watford on the train by himself tomorrow, although Fiona would probably want to drop him off at the train station. It just seems like a very ungrateful way to treat someone after they just saved you is all. And regardless of how Father or Fiona want to spin the story to the Old Families, that’s exactly what happened: Simon Snow rescued me from being kidnapped by fucking numpties, and I have absolutely no idea why.

I called him Simon. Within earshot. He caught me being soft about him, on the phone to Fiona no less, and I want to die. (I think I’m already dead, but maybe I could actually die of embarrassment in this state.)

The soap finally slides off my fingertips and ankles and circles the drain. I stand in the shower under the water starts to run tepid, then grab a towel to dry off. With my luck, Simon will be asleep by the time I make it back to the living room, and any awkward, prying conversations can be saved until the morning, preferably when Fiona isn’t around.

Simon is, as I predicted, completely passed out on the floor, a blanket bundled under his head for a pillow. What an idiot—we could have shared the sofa and slept at opposite ends since I tend to curl up on my side. His mouth isn’t hanging open in a snore, so he must be as exhausted as I feel. Another blanket is draped over his hips, exposing his bare chest to the world, his palm pressed flat against the carpet. I try not to focus on how the curls hanging over his head flutter with each exhale, or how soft his eyelashes look brushing over his freckled cheeks.

Like I said before: I’m so fucked.

I have utterly no intention of sleeping tonight, and not because I have an angel sleeping at my feet. I spent enough time in the dark over the past six weeks. Instead, I light a small fire in my palm and bend down to pull a fuzzy fleece throw printed with snowflakes over Simon’s shoulders. How appropriate—Simon Snow covered in snow, or something close to it. If only I could snap a photo with my mobile right now.

No, a photo wouldn’t do him justice. I settle for sitting cross-legged on the sofa, a wool blanket drawn over my head like a cloak, flames dancing in my hands. Between keeping the fire lit and watching Simon, I should have no trouble staying awake.

 

**Simon**

Taking the floor was a poor call on my part. My muscles always stiffen up after fighting—lactic acid buildup or something, Penny told me the name once—and tonight is no different. It feels like someone stuck a doorknob in the small of my back and keeps twisting it, no matter what position I lay in.

I give up on sleep after what I think is an hour. With a groan, I shift around so I’m more on my side than on my stomach and flutter my eyes open just a touch. Someone’s gone and put one of those ghastly fleece things over my shoulders, which is why I’m boiling alive in my own skin. Then I realize that Baz must have done it, because I sure wouldn’t have. He must have thought I’d freeze in my sleep. Doesn’t he know better from sleeping in the same room as me for seven full years? He’s complained about me tossing my duvet off enough times.

Something’s flickering on the periphery of my sight, and it’s pissing me off because it’s distracting me from trying to drift off again. I crane my neck up, despite all my muscles screaming to the contrary, and follow the light. It’s Baz, or rather the fire in Baz’s palm. He’s not looking at me, but down at the flames, his eyes half-lidded like he’s in a trance.

“Don’t,” he says as soon as I move again. “You’ll ruin it.”

I wrinkle my nose. “Ruin what?”

His eyes finally meet mine. I can tell he wants to roll them, but doesn’t think it’s worth the effort. “This,” he replies, sweeping his hand toward me and the rest of the room. “All of this.”

“You’re not about to torch the flat, are you?”

“Don’t be thick. I’m not that suicidal.”

“Then why the hell aren’t you asleep?” That was a bad question to ask, I know. I can see his whole body tense up under his monk’s hood of a blanket. But frankly it’s the most obvious question, and the only one worth answering.

“I slept long enough in the coffin, Snow,” he sneers at me. “I slept for six bloody weeks and only woke up when the numpties decided it was sippy cup time.”

“Simon,” I correct him, sitting up fully. “Not Snow.”

“Are you sure? You’re covered in the stuff.”

I frown, puzzling out what he could mean until I look down at the fleece that had been on my shoulders and is now pooled in my lap. I glance back up at Baz, and he’s smirking just a bit. This is his idea of a late-night joke, clearly. I can’t help but grin right back at him, showing all my crooked teeth.

“D’you mind if I keep you company?” I ask. I’m dead tired and could probably sleep the whole next day away, but I don’t like the idea of Baz sitting up all night alone. A sharp pang goes off in my chest just thinking about it.

“You’re far more attractive when you’re asleep,” he replies, which I think is the closest I’m getting to an invitation. I swing the snowflake throw back over my shoulders and slide up onto the couch next to him. Baz slides over just the tiniest bit into his nest of pillows, our legs still touching.

“So.”

“So?”

“D’you plan on never sleeping again, or—”

“I’m not so sure it’s a requirement, given my condition.” Baz rolls his palm over, and the fire crawls onto the back of his hand like a flaming caterpillar. “It’s just something I do to feel human.”

“Stop talking like that.”

The fire threads over and under his fingers like a weaving shuttle. “Like what?”

“You’re not a monster.” Baz fixes me with a stare that makes my throat run dry, so I swallow before continuing. “I know I spent the last four years trying to prove you were a vampire, but I don’t think you’re a monster.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I’m not wearing the cross, am I?” I pull the throw away from my neck to show him. Bare as the day I was born.

 

 

**Baz**

He’s not wearing the cross. And he’s practically showing off his chest to me (in an unintentionally erotic way, but still). Somehow there are more moles on his neck that I’ve never noticed before, something I thought was impossible. The boy is covered in constellations.

Please don’t let him see me blush.

 

**Simon**

Baz is blushing hard, all rosy in the firelight, and he’s staring at my neck. I really hope I’m not tempting his bloodlust or whatever, but even if I did, I’m not sure that I’d care. He needs to know that I trust him.

“I gave it back to Agatha,” I explain. “Well, actually, I sort of ripped it off and chucked it after we last spoke. It’s probably in the moat with the merewolves now.”

“A good place for it,” Baz says distractedly. Then he blinks and flicks his eyes back up to my face. “Hold on. Why would you do that?”

“We broke up.” I shrug. “Dr. Wellbelove gave the cross to me as a gift. Agatha would rather snog you than me, so I figured she wouldn’t care if you eventually sunk your fangs into me.”

“I could still bite you.”

“Jesus Christ, Baz!” I’ve probably woken Fiona up by being loud, but I don’t care. “I tell you that I threw away a literal talisman of protection, and you decide to follow that up with _I could still bite you_?!”

“It’s a possibility.” Baz shrugs back at me, and only now do I realize what a prat I must look like every time I do that. Or maybe it just looks that way on him.

 

**Baz**

There are no guarantees with being around a vampire. Nothing that says they wouldn’t drain your blood in an instant given the opportunity. No matter how well-dressed, well-educated, or well-spoken I am, that instinct is still there. Until Simon drives a stake into my heart or runs me through with his damn sword, I will always need to steal away in the dead of night to drain tiny, foul rodents or whatever else I can catch to slake my thirst.

I don’t want to hurt him. That doesn’t mean I can’t.

He doesn’t think I’m a monster. That doesn’t mean _I_ don’t.

I can’t look at him anymore—he’s too beautiful in the firelight. I turn my head to look at the flames on my hand instead, hoping he doesn’t see me crying. If I shed one single tear in his presence, I really will have to torch this flat to ashes.

 

**Simon**

He won’t look at me.

“Baz,” I say gently. “ _Baz_.”

Tears are clinging to his eyelashes. Like everything else about him, they’re long, dark, and disarmingly pretty. He doesn’t want me to see him cry, because he tucks his chin down to his chest and lets his hair fall in front of his face.

He thinks he’s broken. I need him to understand that he’s whole; if anyone here is broken, it’s me. I’m the worst Chosen One to ever be chosen, and he’s the wickedly smart, talented, and dispossessed heir to a magical dynasty. So what if he’s got fangs? I spent four years dogging his every move, desperate to prove it, and I realized tonight, just now really, that I don’t fucking care.

So I slip my fingers under the curtain of his hair and nudge his chin up. He gives me his best watery glare (it’s terrible, really) before I take the plunge and press my lips to his.

 

**Baz**

Simon is kissing me. Simon Snow, the Chosen One, is kissing me, and I feel like I’m about to combust.

I should probably be kissing him back. Should probably tilt my head or grab his hand or do _anything_ other than simply sit here like a hermit in his cowl and let the most beautiful man to ever grace this planet kiss me. Because eventually Simon is going to come to his senses about what he’s doing, and it’ll all be over.

His thumb is so soft against my cheek. The palm of his hand is calloused from swinging that damn sword around like he does, but the pad of his thumb brushing under my eye feels like a little patch of satin. He’s trying to catch my tears before they fall, which only makes me want to cry harder because he’s such a perfect idiot. I don’t want him to stop being gentle.

My hand closes over the flames, not extinguishing them, and I bump his nose with mine to get a little distance between us. Simon blinks like a lost calf, his eyes rounded out and confused with the lack of light.

“I don’t want to stop,” I whisper, “but I’d rather not burn you by accident.”

“Right, right.” I wish I never noticed how much his curls bounce when he nods. That will be a permanent distraction from here on out.

Fiona has a thing for collecting candles—it’s perhaps the least punk thing about her, and I’m always sure to include at least one in her Christmas gift each year. I suspect she actually collects them so she has something to burn to cover up the smell of weed in her flat, but that’s none of my business.  There’s an orange candle as big around as my two fists put together squatting on the end table, so I reach over and tip the flames out of my hand. They collect on the wick and flicker contentedly. I should have probably checked if there was a coaster underneath the candle, but if there isn’t, that’s on Fiona for not practicing good candle etiquette.

“That still freaks me out,” Simon says behind me.

I turn back to face him. “What does?”

“You playing with fire. You’re a vampire, Baz, you’re flammable.”

“So?” Smirking at Simon has become a reflex at this point.  

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

My heart bangs so loudly in my chest that I could swear it’s about to leap out through my shirt. On one level, this is a _rich_ comment coming from the boy who’s thrown more punches at me than I can count, the one who’s responsible for the distinct crook in the bridge of my nose. Yet it’s also the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me. I come from a long line of fire magicians, and he’s concerned I’ll burn myself to a crisp? How naïve.

I don’t tell him any of this, of course. I lean in close so our foreheads touch, and his unremarkably blue eyes have no choice but to look into mine.

“The only thing here that could burn me is you,” I tell him. “Because you’re the sun.”

Then I kiss him, pulling him closer with my hand on the back of his neck. His response is to practically crawl into my lap, arms bracketing me in on both sides. One of his hands comes around to the middle of my back, and I really regret wearing any kind of shirt to sleep in because I want nothing more than for Simon’s bare chest to touch mine. Baby steps, though. No one is shedding any clothing tonight.

“Baz,” he sighs after tugging on my bottom lip. (I wonder if I could get away with doing that to him without my fangs popping. I’ve definitely thought about it.) “ _Baz_.”

“Yes?”

“Are you gay?”

“One hundred percent,” I say without flinching. If I were more awake, I would follow that up with something snarky like _isn’t it obvious?_ , but I don’t have it in me right now. Any urge I had for condescension is completely overwhelmed by pure sap. I’m so far gone. “And you?”

“Um.” Simon shifts his weight on his arms. I swing both legs up on the sofa and lean back against the armrest, leaving my knees slightly open in a shameless invitation. He gets the message and slips right between them, resting his elbows on the sofa cushion. This means he’s looking up at me from down around my stomach, and I cannot stop one part of my mind from slipping into that deep rabbit hole of fantasies I’ve kept locked up for so long.

“I don’t really know,” he continues after a moment. “I…I don’t want to avoid answering your question. It’s a bloody good one, but right now I’m too tired to think about anything properly besides you. And kissing you. I like this,” he gestures to both of us, “better than being at each other’s throats. And I missed you madly—that’s why I came to find you.”

There is so much to unpack in what Simon just said, though I find I’m also lacking the brainpower to work through anything logically. I’ve no idea what time it is, thanks to Fiona’s general aversion to clocks, but I’m well overtired. And my mind is hazy from the kissing. As long as we can go back to that after the sun rises, I’ll be content.

Right now, I’m content to stroke my fingers through Simon’s curls and make a point to kiss every last mole I can find on his face until sleep takes us both over.

**Simon**

I’m revising my earlier statement. Fiona Pitch no longer terrifies me, but it is my personal opinion that she’s a complete little shit. (And I think Baz would agree.)

The morning sun is piercing, because Fiona thought it would be hysterical to twist open her blinds instead of, I dunno, shaking us awake like normal people might. And she also had to crank up her Bluetooth speaker as loud as possible in the kitchen. And she had to hover right over Baz and I until her shadow woke me up.

“Ain’t you two just a pretty sight?” she coos, an unlit cigarette hanging from her mouth. The smell of bacon grease rolls off her stained apron in waves, making my stomach growl.

Underneath me, I feel Baz stir and hiss at Fiona. An honest-to-Merlin hiss. “It’s not noon yet.”

“Did ya shag?”

“Fuck _off_ ,” Baz snarls. When I move to slide my head off his chest, I feel his knuckles tighten against my scalp to keep me in place. “Not you,” he adds when Fiona turns around and heads back to the kitchen. “You’re staying here.”

“I’m hungry,” I whine.

“Trust me, Fiona’s cooking is worth missing.” Baz’s eyes are the softest gray as he strokes my hair. His pale cheeks are still a little pink, as are his lips. Is he always this serene in the early morning, or only when he’s spent the night snogging?

I want to kiss him again, but only if he’ll let me. The desire to do anything with Baz that’s remotely romantic is such a new experience, yet it feels right. Like it’s a gift I’ve wanted for a very long time, but I tucked it away on a closet shelf years ago and forgot to open it. I wonder if it feels the same for him. (I really, really hope it does.)

“So last night…” I venture.

“Yes?”

“Um, I want to do that again. Some more. If we could.”

Baz’s fingers stop working over my scalp. “What are you saying, Snow?”

“Simon,” I correct him. “What I’m saying is I don’t want to fight anymore, and I’m not saying that because I’m still knackered from taking out the numpties. Like I said last night, I like you this way.” I spread my palm out over Baz’s chest. “Honestly, I just want to get through eighth year, graduate Watford, and take out the Humdrum. That bastard is my main target. And if the Old Families still want to truss me up over a bonfire and roast me, then I’ll deal with that later.”

The smile playing over Baz’s lips doesn’t reach his eyes. If anything, he seems to be in pain. “You talk so casually about your imminent doom.”

“S’pose that comes from listening to you rattle on about it for seven years.”

“If you remember, I threatened you with a Viking funeral, not with implied cannibalism. Nothing so barbaric as that. The Old Families have more class.” He lets out a short, hollow laugh. “In all seriousness, I don’t want to fight, either.”

“No?”

“The Humdrum is a bigger threat to the World of Mages than your Mage. And I think,” Baz bites on his lower lip and worries at it, “I think you’re the best chance we’ve got of taking it down. I believe in you.”

His face is more open than I’ve seen before. Everyone seems to have faith in me that I’ll be the one to bring the Humdrum’s downfall, yet no one has ever told me they _believe_ in me. Not even the Mage. Belief seems to imply that I know what I’m doing, that I have a plan, and all I’m waiting for is the right opportunity to strike. But I’ve never been a planner; I run on raw instinct. I feel more than I think, because my magic doesn’t allow me to do much else besides feel.

Baz believes in me. I don’t know what to do with this information.

“What I’m trying to say in a roundabout way is…I want to be your boyfriend,” I tell him bluntly. “I wasn’t a good boyfriend to Agatha, and she’s my only experience with that kind of thing, so I might actually be a bit of a tosser. But I also think that, with her, I was trying to be someone I’m not. With you, though. With you I don’t think I could be anyone but myself, and I think you’d still love me.”

“Who said anything about love?” Baz’s cheeks are rosier than ever. “And you never properly asked me a question. You just told me what you want.”

“Aren’t you going to give it to me?” I ask him cheekily. Such an arrogant prick way of asking, I know, but I can see Baz trying to hold back a laugh. Imagine—he finds me genuinely entertaining.

Baz touches our foreheads, a wicked grin crinkling every sharp angle of his face. “Crowley, yes. Yes, Simon, I’d love to be your boyfriend.”

We don’t talk at all after that, only jumping apart when Fiona threatens to spell the sofa into swallowing us whole if we didn’t come to the kitchen for eggs and kippers right this moment.

 

**Baz**

Thirty-six hours ago, I was stranded in a locked coffin under some bridge guarded by numpties. Now I’m back home, sitting up in my bed, Simon sprawled next to me and holding my hand while we pore through books together.

I still can’t tell if my life is charmed or cursed.

Simon whispered that he had something important he needed to tell me before we joined Fiona for breakfast, but we had to wait until we were alone. Honestly, he should know better than to say something like that to me. I was on edge for the next two hours, all through the ride on the M3 to Hampshire and the awkward homecoming with Father and Daphne where I had to explain numbly that Simon wasn’t here to slice all our throats open with his sword, but rather that he was the one who saved me from the numpties. Fiona then lit into Father about not doing more to look for me, which I took as a cue to slip upstairs to my room with Simon.

“All right, spill it,” I said as soon as he closed the door behind him. Probably wasn’t fair to demand that of him when he was gawking at the gargoyles lining my bed (seriously, they’re not that creepy), but my curiosity had been piqued and I refused to let this go. I’m a secretive person, yet like the hypocrite I am, I can’t stand when someone is keeping secrets from me. My brain craves knowledge.

“Yeah, uh,” Simon twisted up his mouth and winced at me. “You might want to sit down for this?”

I haven’t properly sneered at him in months. It’s like my facial muscles have forgotten how. “You cannot possibly have something to tell me that warrants me preparing myself for shock like a fainting Victorian lady.”

“It’s about—I got Visited. While you were away.” He started wringing his hands, something I’ve never seen him do in all the years I’ve known him (and I’m something of an expert in all things Simon Snow). “It was your mum.”

That actually _was_ something that made me need to sit down. Simon told me everything as slowly as he could, standing at the end of my bed and still wringing his damn hands like a sinner seeking absolution. The constant motion in my periphery was annoying beyond belief, but I wasn’t about to break down crying. Not when Father had promised to come in with Fiona to hit me with a round of healing spells. I would _not_ have them cutting in on us in that state.

It was after Father and Fiona had worked their magic over me—Fiona still chewing his ear off from their argument downstairs, she’s a right bulldog—that Simon came near my bed and kneeled down in front of me. I’d imagined dozens of scenarios with Simon kneeling in front of me (sometimes there was blood, sometimes other fluids were involved), and none of them featured the ghost of my dead mother slipping out from behind the Veil with a message.

“We’re gonna find him, Nicodemus. Whoever the fuck he is.” The conviction in Simon’s voice was so strong, I could hear the magic behind his words although what he said wasn’t even remotely a spell. “I’m helping you.”

“I didn’t ask for your help,” I told him gloomily.

“You didn’t have to ask.”

“Crowley, Simon.” These stupid tears were going to come regardless of what I did to hold them back. I love this courageous disaster so much it might kill me. “Try not to sound so lovestruck.”

“Seal it with a kiss?”

“What?”

“Seal the promise with a kiss.” He shrugged. “You know: I’ll help you find your mum’s killer, and you can help me with the Humdrum. That is, if you still want to.”

To my knowledge, “ ** _Seal it with a kiss!_** ” is not supposed to be a spell. Where Simon Snow is involved, though, magic tends to bend its own rules. In any case, I feel the weight of obligation press down on both of us when our lips touch. Then Simon gets a fistful of my hair, and we were thoroughly distracted by each other for the next ten minutes. And _then_ he kissed me on the forehead, because apparently my mum told him to pass along that message as well, and that’s when the tears fell.

We haven’t found any trace of Nicodemus in any of the books in my family’s library. I’ve got this sneaking suspicion that Fiona knows who he might be, because she’s been awfully dodgy since bringing us to Hampshire. Instead of going back to her flat in London, she’s stayed in her room here so she’s more accessible for healing spells. (“If you think Malcolm has enough fuckin’ magic to heal you on his own, think again,” she told me pointedly after dinner one night.) Of course I can’t sneak into her room to snoop for information, because she’s always in there smoking and listening to her vinyls, only wandering downstairs when hunger makes her want to bite someone’s head off. Looks like we may have to wait until Christmas to follow that particular thread.

***

After a week, it’s decided that Simon and I can return to Watford. (Simon could have left whenever he wanted, really, but I don’t think they make solvent strong enough to unstick him from my side. Not that I’m complaining.) I have no idea how we’ve somehow escaped the attention of the Mage, unless he’s just as preoccupied as Simon says. There hasn’t even been one of those little birds that the Mage always uses to summon Simon pecking at our windows.

“Maybe he forgot I exist,” Simon jokes while I’m packing my suitcase. He’s lying down on the chaise in my room, an arm thrown over his forehead, wearing a cashmere sweater Daphne gave me that I could never fill out properly. Navy blue sets off his freckles in the most distracting way, and I keep losing track of what I’m packing in favor of staring at him in the least subtle manner possible.

“Wouldn’t that be a good thing?” I ask, swallowing so my throat isn’t so dry. I don’t think I will ever drink enough of Simon in to stop being thirsty.

“Probably, given the circumstances.” He shoots me a wicked grin. “Not sure if he’d want me hauling you about on any quest he gives me.”

“Who says I’d go with you?”

Merlin, I hate his cocky face. “Face it, Baz. You can’t go anywhere without me.”

He’s right, and I fucking hate him for it.

Fiona is mercifully civil the entire drive to Watford, only making one half-hearted snarky comment once we get on the northern outskirts of London.

“Be sure you use your mobile,” she tells me while glancing in the rear-view mirror. Father gave me a new one as a back-to-school present, and it’s been jailbroken to get around the Mage’s electronic interference hexes. “And fucking _call me_ if there’s trouble. No more getting kidnapped by numpties and trying to fight them off yourself.”

“I could always keep him out of trouble, Fiona,” Simon pipes up, his arms draped over the front passenger’s seat, face pressed up against the headrest.

“You’re some of the trouble I’m afraid he’s gonna get into, _Chosen One_ ,” Fiona snaps.

“Fuck off,” Simon snaps back. Fiona gives me another look in the rear-view mirror as she shifts gears, and I’m not sure I like what she’s implying. She knows nothing about Simon and I—we kept it discrete in Hampshire, only drawing close to each other when we knew we were completely alone. Mordelia walked in once while Simon had my head in his lap, but I swore her to secrecy. Pitches aren’t snitches, and neither are Grimms.

The front gates are closed, obviously, when both of us get dropped off. Everyone is inside the school for dinner, including the guards. Lovely. Far better for making a dramatic entrance.

“Do we really _have_ to make a dramatic entrance?” Simon asks as I jiggle the padlock around the gate. “We could just go back up to our room and sneak down later for food.”

“One: I am hungry for Watford food, which is a sentence I never thought I’d speak in my life, but here we are.” I slip my wand out of my jacket sleeve and murmur an unlocking spell (“ ** _The magic word is please!_** ”), but to no avail. “Two: _You_ were the one who slipped out in the dead of night to rescue your sworn enemy from rumbling rock monsters, then proceeded to take him to McDonald’s, snog the life out of him in his aunt’s flat, and stay with him in his family’s ‘completely fucking creepy’ mansion for a week. And yet you somehow think flinging the Great Hall doors open to announce your triumphant return exceeds your capacity for drama.”

Simon rolls his eyes and shoves his hands deeper into his pockets, his breath puffing out in front of his face. “Fine.”

“For once in your life, Simon Snow, own up to the fact that you’re a goddamn disaster who’s as subtle as a brick.” I jab my wand at the padlock and snarl “ ** _Dust in the wind!_** ” The hasp rusts away into the grass, and I shove the gates open with one hand. Simon matches me step for step up the path to the front doors, carrying my suitcase (what a gentleman) and holding my other hand tightly.

“I’ve just one question before we get inside,” I say when we reach the front doors.

“Yeah?”

“What spell did you use to find me?” The question has plagued me since we were on the train into London the night Simon rescued me, but I didn’t have the wherewithal to ask. Plus, every opportunity I’ve had to ask since then has been mysteriously cut off by Simon kissing me. He’s a terrible distraction.

Simon blushes so hard he practically glows like a neon sign. “It wasn’t really a spell, honestly. More of a song. Moody Blues, actually.”

“Which one?” Fiona plays the Moody Blues whenever she needs to take a “soft punk day”, as she calls it (usually when she’s hung over), and she mixes them in with Rush and a couple other bands. I have _opinions_ about the Moody Blues’ lyrics, as well as their devolution into synth rock in the late ‘80s, but most of the time I can tolerate them.

He sings it for me, all hushed and mellow, without any magic behind the words. Add _not half bad singing voice_ to the list of reasons to love him (as if I need more reasons). He cast the whole damn chorus of “I Know You’re Out There Somewhere” to find me, and apparently did this on a street corner in Kensington without blowing anything up. I’m beyond impressed, and I’ve turned to utter mush on the inside. Simon may still kill me yet, but this time it’d be out of love.

“That’s properly gay, you know,” I tell him. “Singing a song to find your vampire enemy and then kissing him to sleep the same night.”

Simon squeezes my hand harder. “Shut up,” he whines, fighting down a smile the whole time.

We walk inside Watford proper, side-by-side, to the tall oaken doors of the Great Hall. They’re closed, of course, and the din of conversation and clinking silverware rings out into the hallway. As far as everyone on the other side is concerned, we aren’t here. But they’re all in for a surprise.

“Last chance, Simon,” I say, twirling my wand in my fingers.

“For what?”

“I’ll allow you this one time— _one_ time—to carry me over the threshold in your arms.”

“No thanks.” Simon shakes his head and sets down my suitcase. “I’ll save that move for later.”

The smile he gives me makes me want to melt into my boots, and my stomach flips at the possible implication for what he just said. No time to think about that now, though. Instead, I raise my wand, point them at the doors to the Great Hall, and say with the clearest elocution:

“ ** _Open sesame!_** ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So ends the story of Simon saving Baz from the numpties, and the two of them delving into the beginning of a beautiful relationship (with some bumps in the road, of course). Although I didn't plan out the rest of this canon-divergent world in order to write this fic, I would imagine the rest of Carry On would carry on (lol) much the same way as the novel does, only with the added twist of Simon and Baz trying to figure out how love works when you've faced off against for seven years as agents of war. 
> 
> There are quite a few parts I thought about expanding on, such as Simon telling Baz about the Visiting. I ended up cutting it, though, because I thought that conversation would end up repeating too much of canon. Also, Simon and Baz were initially going to share a bed instead of sleeping in Fiona's living room (hence Baz's comment about the mattress), but I thought forced bed-sharing might be a bit much for them to handle after dealing with the numpties. Maybe I'll write a canon-compliant bed sharing fic for them in the future...hmm...
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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